to think that people will be too wary to move in together?

[tuggy]

Just read this article and it saying that there is the possibility (not set in stone blah blah) that they will be giving co-habiting couples the same rights on break up, as married couples. Now I'm sure that in plenty of cases, there are people who have lived together for 20 years, without getting married, broken up, and been royally screwed when they had no more rights that the neighbour, to a fair settlement. Doubtless all those people will leap on to tell me their story and proclaim IABU.

However what I'm thinking is that in GENERAL (cue flaming) you date someone, you like them, after a year you think yeah I could live with them, give it a shot living together, it works out, you maybe get married voilà. But if it doesn't work out, you can walk away because phew you didn't actually tie the know.

If this new law comes in then suddenly when you move in together you are making the decision at THAT stage that this person may be eligible for half your worldly goods. When I moved in with my DP (hopefully one day DH) I was in love, I was hopeful for the future, but I don't think I'd have wanted to necessarily commit to him definitely having rights over my flat/business/savings. If I'd felt that certain I'd have married him, not moved in with him.

In my mind marriage, and just deciding to give it a shot and move in are two very very different steps and should be treated as such.

(dons hard hat from people who have co-habited for years and are in the anti-marriage brigade)

Discuss ;)

cestlavie, With respect, what do you think marriage is for? I'll tell you what I think it is for: 'it is to legally declare that two people wish to be known as a couple'.
That is it's main purpose' so that there is no ambiguity around the issue.

Anyway, this is very simple for me: I do not want the govt declaring me to be somehow married because I live with someone.
Sweet F.A. to do with 'sanctity of marriage', sweet F.A. to do with the Daily Mail, or anything else:
It is about freedom of choice.

lol OHM - you're not wrong, but I guess, to use your example, if everyone believed it was legal to drive on the wrong side of the road, there'd be a pretty extensive campaign to make sure everyone knew it was wrong. I would guess there's not many other aspects of the law in which so many people are mistaken about their rights as around property.

But that aside, even if everyone knew, it's still expensive and difficult to put in place a legal framework ex. marriage - £400 is an awful lot of money for a lot of people plus not exactly easy to get your heads around the legal documents.

yanbu couples should have the choice to 'opt in'.
Having to opt out at whatever crucial moment is decided (2 years/start of mortgage ... what is the plan?) could be awkward all round.

So, is this idea to tie in with them stopping legal aid for divorce?: "a cohabitation law, which would make unmarried couples go through all the legal hoops of divorce when they split."
It's sounding like a bit of a money spinner.

And as is to it being unfair that a cohabitee can kick the other one out after 10 years together, sorry, but so what?
If the cohabitee can prove to the judge that mortgage payments have been made by them in spite of not being on deeds, they may get a portion anyway.

If they can't, then why on earth should they get a portion of something they have not contributed to?

No doubt the argument will be 'but I loved him' Right. So loving a man =financial compensation... Oh dear. I know what that sounds like to me...
Or 'I gave up work to look after children', yes and you had free bed and board during that time and I'm sorry, if a woman is truly career-driven she won't give up work for years and years anyway or she'd make sure she was named on property agreements as part-owner.

£400 is far less than most spend on marriage.

Free bed and board?? what the fuck are you on?

Two people chose to have children, two people chose that one parent would stay at home to raise those children, what on earth would make you think that the parent who stayed at home should be grateful for this?

They should be grateful; but the other parent should be grateful to them, too.
But with cohabitees, the 'payment' occurs at the time of the transaction. If they go their separate ways, that's it; each owes the other nothing other than that which they explicitly laid out on paper i.e. dividing up of jointly held properties.

"Ephiny - you know, I just don't get that. Why should marriage (in a secular society) be about earning specific rights?"

I guess because a lot of people want to enter into a marriage-like relationship where assets are pooled, which makes sense especially when you have a stay-at-home-parent who is being supported by the other partner and wants some security in the case of a breakup? So having some ready-made, one-size-fits-all contract called 'marriage' which confers the required rights in those cases is simpler than all the couples who would otherwise have got married having to go to solicitors to draw up agreements individually?

Anyway, not necessarily saying that's what marriage 'should' be (you could certainly argue about whether it's the best way of doing things, though you have to consider people's emotional attachment to traditional things as well as just what works best!), just that it's what it currently is, or so it appears to me.

Mr Spoc, you say "But boyfriend, girlfriend living together, boyfriend works, girlfriend stays home, cooking, cleaning looking after dog, cat or children etc - this is a contract agreed by both parties so she will be entitled to receive her share."

Erm, no. Although a couple of cases have been cited here where a judge has decided that the partner who DIDN'T have their name on the deeds was entitled to a share, it's at the judge's discretion and more often than not, this doesn't happen.

Example: a friend of mine who lived with her partner for 12 years. They agreed together that she would give up work and be a SAHM. Then he leaves her and it turns out the only thing he's obliged to do is pay maintenance for the kids. She's been out of work for 11 years and now has to move out of the house (in his name) and will get basic maintenance.

I don't know if people should be forced into a legal arrangement, but I do think they should be made more aware of their rights or lack of.

And Marantha, your attitude to SAHMs stinks like week old fish - and I say this as someone who is working right up to labour and the taking two weeks off. It's really offensive that you compare the unpaid work of running a home and family to prostitution.

If a couple agree between the two of them that one person will stay at home, run the house, raise their kids, run their lives (and usually end up being the other person's PA, dogsbody and looking after any elderly in-laws) and then one of them can break that agreement and leave the SAHP with nothing, that's shit. Money isn't the only worthwhile thing to contribute to a home and to raising a family, you know. As my Dad often told my SAH Mum, if he had had to share the housework and childcare, he could never have held down the demanding job that he did. He couldn't have had his career without her support. It was worth a lot to him. And my Mum wasn't being paid for sex.

diamond back - your friend has been unlucky and would be wise to seek another lawyer.

It is aldependand upon cercumstances but her beeing in the house with a child for that period, she should have a right to some of the home.

I feel she has just been really unlucky. How long ago was this?

So your friend willingly gave up work to become sahm? Of her own free will?
So, then the choice was hers wasn't it?
She didn't bother to check out her legal position?
You know whenever this sort of thing comes up, I always think that women can't have it both ways: they cannot be expected to be treated like thinking adults who can hold down jobs of responsibility if they believe living with a man should give them rights.

If woman are (which they should very much be in my view) to be taken seriously as thinking adults and not silly little girls, they seriously should 'man up' and take consequences of their actions and that means saying, 'I didn't marry the guy. My mistake' and move on without trying to extract a penny from him.

MrSpoc, I am not a lawyer, but I have to say that reading around the subject, what DiamondBack describes is what usually happens.

MrSpoc - I think the situation with your friend was extremely unusual, and as you say relied on having a very good lawyer.

The reality is that most women who have given up work to look after children and aren't married don't have access to the funds to hire a 'damm good lawyer' and so they get nothing, because the law states that as they were not named on the deeds they don't own the house.

I agree, Alibabaandthe40nappies, unless they are independently wealthy, they are not going to. And if they're independently wealthy, chances are they're on deeds anyway.

To be honest, MrSpoc, I should think law concerning property has to be pretty tight and perhaps judges don't wish to 'rock the boat' and it is just easier to stick with the default option of what is explicitly written.
I personally would not blame any judge for this. In fact, I'd agree 100% with them. I don't think property should be given away on a 'He said this, she said that' basis, myself.

Marantha, not commenting on your views on SAHP's aside, the law has always recognised equitable contributions to property and chattel in the vast majority of other situations. In fact, the balance between equity and the law dates back centuries.

Equitable in these circumstances does not, incidentally, mean some sort of cash contribution. It means what in essence what is fair and appropriate under a given set of circumstances. For example, if Person A promised Person B a car, and Person B relied on this promise (for example, setting up a minicab business) and was encourage to do so by Person A then Person A could equitably estopped from not giving Person B a car.

And frankly, to suggest that the only contribution that matters in property is cash paid is ridiculous, as other posters have noted.

I don't think it shows a nasty attitude to SAHPs to say that if someone has kids with their partner, stays at home to look after them, and then has to walk away without a penny except for child maintenance after 10 years because they weren't married then they should have thought about that when they were discussing marriage.

Leaving aside any 'moral' guff, marriage does to a significant extent protect women - for example from feckless tossers who'll get someone pregnant and then walk away, or from the kind of bastard who could kick their partner of 10 years out without a penny.

If some guy proposed that I bear his kids and stop working to look after them, but refused to marry me, I'd see that as a big red flag. If I went ahead and bore his kids, and then it all went arse over tit further down the line I'd feel like I was at least partly responsible for having put myself in such a vulnerable position without any kind of legally-sanctioned status.

I think there is sufficient a movement against it that it won't happen, thankfully. It would be a huge infringement of people's liberties and I hope most mumsnetters are against it. There is marriage for those who want it but not otherwise.

cestlavie, The reason why marriage is important is because it sets out intent at the beginning of the relationship.
It is no good after the relationship has broken down to say- 'he promised me this' 'he promised me that'.
For all anybody else outside the relationship knows, the deal made by the couple is that the woman stayed at home to raise children (which meant she did not have to work) while the man earned the cash. And that if relationship ended both would have already 'paid' each other in kind.
Now this is NOT to say woman's role is trivial and unimportant at all, my point is this: without something setting out intent (marriage OR explicit documentation of intent) there is no way of knowing.
It's all left to chance.

But my main point is this: as Xenia points out, it's a huge infringement on people's liberties and that is what is important.

The proposed changes are paternalistic. They regard women as thick chattels who don't have the brains to organise their relationships to protect themselves. Of course some of them are like that but that doesn't mean it benefits women to be nanny state over it.

And then there are those of us women who pay out hugely to men on divorce as I did. It's not all one way of course. I would have been a lot better of unmarried as would anyone in a long marriage who earns large multiples more than their ex spouse.

It may seem harsh to see these proposals as akin to prostitution of a kind; but if people do demand financial compensation at end of relationship, then the 'judge' will HAVE to put financial value on what was provided, won't he?

If the woman cannot demonstrate that a promise of property sharing was made, then a financial value has to be placed upon her contribution.

The judge may say, 'Yes you looked after the children and did the housework, but in return you did not have to pay any bills and had your partner pay everything for you. So you now owe each other nothing'. I know that would be MY view.

If the woman then pleads she should be entitled to something from man as she provided 'emotional support', then I am afraid she IS saying she has been a prostitute.

I actually think emotional support is priceless as in no financial value can be placed on it.

God don;t say that maranatha, that's what I do for a living (not marriage but emotional support).

i think it varies; if someone's dp was able to flya round the world becuase his dp picked up the childcare, and everything else, and he couldn;t have done it without her then it has a financial value; if he worked 9 - 5 then maybe not so, he could still ahve done it without her making sacrifices.

Same in other ways- if a partner follwoed their Dpa round the world living a year here and there then their chnaces of establishing a career were directly affected by the career of the earner. I ahve friends in a similar situation- job of one necessitated a move abroad but that emant job of other put on hold- and they are debating a civil partnership as part of that 'deal'.

I doubt the change will happen but it should be resisted. People should be free in a free society to choose whether they want the legal obligations of marriage or not. Nothing stops a man or woman checking the differences before they get involved and if the richer party says no marriage but you can move in they take the risk. If the other person says happy to put you on the title deeds as 50% each then they have that protection. If not then they move in at their own risk.

Peachy. I mean that I don't think emotional support can have any price attached to it in context of a relationship.

I don't understand the ' I should have access to his assets, if it were not for me, he would not have been able to travel around the world' argument.
It is not as if the partner has been forced into it or anything, it would be her choice.
Surely, as a thinking adult, she should be able to say, 'Hang on, we aren't married. That could cause me problems in future'.

I really think these proposals treat women as idiots, I really do.
Either we go back to the days when women were regarded as brain-dead morons in need of protection or we accept they are thinking adults who can do exactly same things as men.
If it is the latter, then these proposals should not come into being.

Also, if things other than marriage/explicit legal arrangements are to have weight, what is to stop people other than intimate partners having a claim on someone else's property because of non-financial services provided?

If I live with a frail relative/platonic male friend rent-free for a number of years in return for my doing household chores such as shopping, cleaning, cooking etc, should I be entitled to a share of his home?
Most people would say not. Well the only difference between my arrangement and a cohabiting person in same position would be a sexual relationship.
So those who say I should not receive compensation while a lover should, are basically saying sexual services= financial compensation.

If we go down the road of things other than financial contribution having worth, we are opening up a can of worms.
Would the fact that I helped out an elderly relative every week by doing their cleaning entitle me to a share of their house?
Or that I stayed with and provided emotional support for a boyfriend 5 nights a week be of worth?

This is all very interesting. In Scotland cohabitants now have rights in each other's property on separation or death on intestacy but these are restricted. For one, a claim must be made through the court and the time limits for doing so are quite tight (12 months from the date of separation; 6 months from the date of death). A claimant can only claim for their disadvantage to the tune of the other party's advantage. Therefore, if one party has not been advantaged by the claimant's efforts then there is a limited claim.

Cohabitants are defined in Scots law as a couple living together as though they were husband and wife or civil partners. Accordingly there are no difficulties with flatmates or other family members etc.

The change to the law was borne out of the fact that parties, frequently women, were being disadvantaged on separation or death. People very often don't make wills or worse they draft their own using those terrible forms from the post office which give rise to all sorts of problems. The extent of what can be claimed is limited and it is not possible to claim more than what a spouse would receive.

The law is quite new (2006) and is in the process of being tested. There are problems with the legislation in that certain aspects are open to interpretation (hardly unusual though - that's why cases go to court!) and there are a number of cases on appeal at the moment as judges at first instance have applied the law inconsistently.

Prenuptial agreements have a different status in Scots law and cohabitation agreements which are similarly framed are accordingly becoming more common.

Should any change to the law in England be made, and I am a Scots family lawyer so I know absolutely squat about the position in England, then I would be reasonably confident that the problems raised in this thread would be dealt with in the legislation. Standing the recent changes in the law with respect to prenuptial agreements in England then it is likely that cohabitation agreements would become more common.

I do agree that parties being married or in a civil partnership makes things easier on separation or death. The reality though is that many people cohabit and do not marry. There are situations where people cohabit with one person whilst still being married albeit separated from their spouse. The artist formerly known as the CSA only provides for the child(ren) and not the main carer who may be disadvantaged on the labour market after ten years out of paid employment to the benefit of the family.

I agree that it is complicated but I am glad we now have these provisions in Scotland (and not just because it generates business for my practice before anyone asks!). In my view the law is catching up with how many people now live.

This way of forcing commitment on couples has been standard for years with regards to benefits and tax credits. I've not heard much outcry about that - in fact, I've heard opinions saying they shouldn't move in together if they're not prepared to share finances.

It's only now that it's affecting the wider population that they're starting to care about how unfair and unrealistic it is.